Bonjour,

Welcome to THE BLUE - A Blog that explores global Lifestyles and how food, wine, interiors & lifestyles are shaped by our differences. THE BLUE shares inspiring stories of individuals that think and make a difference.

website

Imagine going to your favourite Supermarket and having clearly stated on the package all the chemicals employed to grow your vegetables? forget about labelling nature, just label the chemically treated.We will need to be educated to understand the significance of - neonicotinoids (pesticides that affect the central nervous system of insects, especially bees), calcium carbide (artificial ripening), Ethephon (pesticide) and oxytocin (hormone /increasing the size of fruits & vegetables) of course without forgetting to state their carcinogenic levels.

I recently worked on a Neroli Beauty Project. Our organically grown flowers used to produce the essential oil needed in our Cosmetic line came from Minamata, a city located on the west coast of Kyūshū southern island, Kumamoto province.

Minamata was established as a fishing village in 1889 and grew into a city in 1949 to became unfortunately famous in the 60's for severe Mercury poisoning that occurred by Mercury discharged in wastewater from a chemical plant (Chisso Co. Ltd.), causing irreversible neurological damage to its population who ingested contaminated fish and shellfish.

But my point is not about Minamata, whom because of this disaster became (slightly) more aware of chemical contamination but about ECOCERT, a French organization that label the "VIVANT" (the living species).This bureaucracy - that started with good intentions I am sure - became the "dictator of the absurd"! Proving that our crops were naturally grown without chemical became our cross to bear.

Our Neroli farmers had some kind of Japanese Organic Certification but not the ones taken into account by ECOCERT.It was not a human to human understanding of what's matter since we could not speak to the Japanese local ECOCERT inspector for fears of potential corruption, only to an ECOCERT representative back in France who orchestrated the set of rules and list of "paid for" official proofs certifying our good intentions - No matter our neighbor farmer happily sprayed his own crops with nasty chemicals since we we all know, thanks to our Chernobyl experience, that clouds don't cross official borders.My question is "How about labeling the chemically treated"?Out with ECOCERT - welcome to CHEMI-CERT!